When a child finishes the cereal in his or her breakfast bowl, milk often remains in the bowl. The child would like to drink, or “slurp,” the remaining milk. To do so, the child tilts the bowl to his or her mouth. This action typically causes spillage, because the milk exits the bowl both into and not into the child's mouth. Adults face a similar dilemma when they attempt to drink soup or other beverages from a wide-mouth bowl or other fluid container or vessel having a large opening.
A number of attachments are known to facilitate drinking of a liquid, such as water, soda, beer, or other beverages, from a conventional cup or can having a relatively small opening. The moustache cup adapter disclosed by Miller in U.S. Pat. No. 3,944,11 represents one example. The moustache cup adapter (“adapter”) does not center or funnel the flow of liquid; rather, the adapter blocks and restricts flow, to protect the mustache, except for the aperture defined by opening 3. Element 1 of the adapter is a segmental-shaped, flat, thin, plastic plane without walls to direct flow.
Other devices are known to engage fluid containers or vessels having a large opening to facilitate drinking of the fluid. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 373,050 illustrates one example of such a device. Brewer et al. show a straw penetrating both the rim of the container and an upper region of the side wall of the container. One end of the straw sits adjacent the bottom of the bowl, enabling the user to drink at least most of the fluid from the container. This device requires a specially manufactured bowl: one having aligned holes in both its rim and side wall. In addition, the relatively small opening of the straw limits the amount of liquid that the device can transfer during a specified period of time and, therefore, the speed at which the user can drink.
To overcome the shortcomings of the existing devices, a new rim-mounted drinking aid for liquid containers is provided. An object of the present invention is to provide an easily manufactured drinking aid that engages conventional containers without requiring any modification to the container. A related object is to provide a drinking aid that easily slips onto the rim of a container where it is adequately held in place. Other related objects are to provide a flexible drinking aid that engages the container via a combination of spring and frictional forces and a drinking aid constructed so that it conforms to and fits tightly on the rim of the container.
Still other objects of the present invention are to provide an effective seal with the associated container and to prevent spillage when the user drinks from the container. An additional object is to provide a drinking aid that centers or funnels the flow of liquid from the container and toward the mouth of the user. Yet another object is to permit rapid, substantially spill-free transfer of large quantities (certainly relative to conventional straws) of liquid from a container.
It is still another object of the present invention to assure that the drinking aid can be easily removed from the container, cleaned, and reused. An additional object is to render the drinking aid readily adaptable for use with containers of slightly different size, and able to readily conform to irregularities in the configuration of the container.